What: 2016 Upper Deck Alien Anthology trading cards
Arrives: March 30
Box basics: five cards per pack, 20 packs per box, 12 boxes per case

What's buzz-worthy: The world of the first three Alien movies will be found all in one place as Upper Deck's next non-sports release will revisit the classic science-fiction franchise during its 30th anniversary.

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When is a guy not an All-Star but an All-Star -- yet not an All-Star even when he's an All-Star?

When his name is John Scott.

The tale of a journeyman's route to the NHL All-Star Game -- but not -- is one that has a lot of details and seemingly a lot of politics. (It's a story that SBNation is all over here.) The basics? A fan vote led to a guy who's played for six teams in eight seasons with 11 career points making the team. Then, when he was traded and demoted, he's no longer eligible for the game.

And all this, naturally, had Buzz wanting a hockey card ... and it turns out they're selling pretty well for a 33-year-old journeyman All-Star.

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It's a week for hockey fans and non-sports/gaming collectors as that is all that's on tap this week  with just five releases on the schedule.

Set to arrive on Wednesday from Upper Deck is the latest NHL brand, 2015-16 SP Game-used, which will include five cards per box -- and all of them will be autograph or memorabilia cards. There will be a mix of rookies, patches, Stadium Series cards, gloves, pads and more in this high-end product.
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Martin Luther King Jr.'s place in history is quite substantial and he appears on a decent amount of cardboard for a historical figure, but a cut autograph of the civil rights icon is not so easy to find.

He appears on fewer than 10 cut autos with the first coming from Upper Deck back in 2004.  That 1/1 card was in the 2004 SP Game Used Patch Cut Signatures set.

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Before he made his big-league debut in 1949, Monte Irvin had been a star in the Negro Leagues who was among the most-respected in the game -- a player who had all-around skills and quite a strong career before making the leap to MLB and ultimate enshrinement in the Hall of Fame.

“Monte was the choice of all Negro National and American League club owners to serve as the No. 1 player to join a white major-league team,” Newark Eagles owner and Hall of Famer Effa Manley once said. “We all agreed, in meeting, he was the best qualified by temperament, character ability, sense of loyalty, morals, age, experiences and physique to represent us as the first black player to enter the white majors since the Walker brothers back in the 1880s. Of course, Branch Rickey lifted Jackie Robinson out of Negro ball and made him the first, and it turned out just fine.”

Irvin, who went on to eight seasons in the big leagues, hitting .293 with 99 homers and 443 RBI beginning as a 30-year-old "rookie," died on Tuesday. He was 96.

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This week's new release schedule is a bit icy, a bit historic and a bit patriotic despite there being just six products set to arrive in hobby shops.

Coming on Wednesday is 2015-16 Upper Deck Trilogy hockey, which will include one rookie autograph, one memorabilia card and one "premium" autograph per box. Among them will be Tryptichs like you can see above and variations based on stats and debut seasons. The wide mix of possibilities should make these eight-pack boxes ones that get ripped quickly.
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We're about a month away from this year's version of National Hockey Card Day -- an Upper Deck promotion that gets two different sets into collectors' hands if they visit a card shop during the hobby holiday.

There will be one 16-card set available in the United States and a different 16-card set available in Canada -- beginning on Feb. 6. Only one will include NHL newcomer and No. 1 overall draft pick Connor McDavid, though.

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For 2015-16 Upper Deck products that don't get a standalone story here on The Buzz when a final checklist is released, we'll place a link to a PDF of the set's checklist right here.

You'll be able to find all checklists in PDF form as released by the company and all in one spot. (If traffic stats show us you guys like this format, we'll expand in other directions. If not, Buzz will focus on other stuff.)

Keep reading to see the Upper Deck checklists posted so far.

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The Upper Deck Gallery's latest offering includes some of the most-iconic characters in recent film history as part of a montage print for a film that would carry the same gravitas.

The film is Pulp Fiction and a pair of prints by artist Dave Perillo are the latest creation from the company in a series of pieces featuring past films and comic book characters.

“I was super excited for the opportunity to work on this project for the Upper Deck Gallery, especially since Pulp Fiction is one of my all-time favorite movies," Perillo said. "It is such a fantastic story filled with so many unique characters. I love how the movie has a retro quality to it without really specifying when it takes place. My goal was to translate that into the print, hopefully doing it justice.”

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are five threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing Today: 1/1 showcases, unopened wax stashes, Connor McDavid, big-time retro box breaks & Muhammad Ali.

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Way back in 1999, Elton Brand was a star center for the Duke Blue Devils -- a center from tiny Peekskill, N.Y., who was about to make a big impression as the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft.

Fast-forward to today and the former Chicago Bull is coming out of retirement to join the NBA's worst team -- the Philadelphia 76ers, owners of a 3-33 record -- to help mentor another former Blue Devils star and first-round pick, Jahlil Okafor. Okafor, of course, has had issues off the court this season while also picking up the NBA game quickly. It's a match made in Blue Devils collecting heaven.

"He's not unlike most 20-year-olds you probably know, and he's definitely not at all different than most of his fellow players," Brand wrote in a piece for Sports Illustrated's website. "... if camera phones were around when Brad Miller, Ron Artest and I were Jahlil's age, we might've been banned from the league altogether, never mind suspended for a few games."

So, what about Brand on cardboard?

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Nick Loiacono
Also known as: @YanksandBeans
Website: thecardboarddugout.blogspot.com
Email: NickLoiacono@gmail.com
Location: New York
Work away from cards: Mobile DJ (PickNickParties.com)
Collecting since: 1986-91, 2008-present

Main focuses: Through-the-mail autographs, New York Yankees, Thurman Munson, Mariano Rivera, Rickey Henderson, Will Ferrell (on cardboard)

Favorite players/teams: I’ve always loved Yankees first basemen. When I started collecting again in 2008, I decided to "supercollect" Mark Teixeira. It was going good for a long time, but was getting frustrating as I was constantly getting outbid on auction sites by someone I dubbed as my "Nemesis." Long Story short, that collector was featured on Buzz, Robert Morris, and to this day he remains one of my best collecting friends. I eventually conceded my collection to him and sent him all of my 1/1s to add to his insane collection. I still have great stuff, but I knew when to cut my losses.

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Simply put, it pays to follow @blowoutcards and @blowoutbuzz on Twitter.

Besides the latest info about your hobby and collecting, there are also contests -- and we're here on the first day of 2016 to reveal the final contest winners of 2015.

Boxes of Topps' Star Wars cards, Upper Deck's hockey cards, Topps' 2015 Bowman Draft baseball cards and Panini America's football cards were up for grabs with a simple retweet contest that developed on Twitter Thursday evening.

Were you one of the winners?

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We all knew that Connor McDavid was going to be a big deal and we all knew his Young Guns Rookie Card from 2015-16 Upper Deck would be kind of a big deal, too.

But what about a perfect BGS Black label specimen? Well, one of these sold this week so we know how big it can get.

How much?

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It's a time of change, a time of high-end product exploration and a time of options for many collectors in what we call the sports card industry these days.

Tastes, products and prices continue to evolve as does the business environment that helps bring us our cardboard. For every super-pricey box being made, there are seemingly just as many buyers ready to rip or pick off singles for not-always-so-super prices (but super bargains).

The Buzz has only been around for part of 2015, but Buzz has been here all along as part of the world of collecting. Here are Buzz's picks for 15 cards that helped define 2015.

2015-16 Upper Deck #201 Connor McDavid RC
The impressive prices being paid for what's just a simple piece of cardboard with just gloss and some foil stamping shows that fundamentals never go out of style when there's a big name involved. This time, it's the No. 1 pick Connor McDavid, a Canadian phenom drafted by the Edmonton Oilers. This photo was selected by collectors and it even has a fun sign of 2015 -- the fan showing off a photo on her phone in the background.

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Upper Deck revealed its checklist for the 2015-16 MVP rookie redemptions on Tuesday with 35 cards of newcomers headed to the printer and into collectors' hands soon.

No surprises who's at No. 1 -- Connor McDavid has a standard card, an autograph card and a gold autographed card.

Who's on the rest of the list? Keep reading.

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Teemu Selanne was a 10-time All-Star and Rookie of the Year who scored 684 goals in his 21 seasons and whose next stop is the Hall of Fame.

Now he's a member of the Upper Deck Authenticated signing roster.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are five threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Results from 2015 Topps Dynasty, favorite sets, Star Wars, prospecting the 2016 NFL Draft & more

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Basketball Hall of Famer and legendary Harlem Globetrotters showman Meadowlark Lemon has died, the team announced on Monday. He was 83.

Known as "The Clown Prince of Basketball," Lemon was a fixture for the traveling exhibition team beginning in 1954. He's one of just five players to have his number retired by the team and he played more than 7,500 games in the red, white and blue before retiring in the late-1970s. He joined the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2003.

"Meadowlark was the most sensational, awesome, incredible basketball player I’ve ever seen," former Globetrotter Wilt Chamberlain told The New York Times in 1999. "People would say it would be Dr. J or even Jordan. For me, it would be Meadowlark Lemon."

Off the court, he was one of the core players often seen on the Globetrotters' cartoon series, some memorable episodes of Scooby-Doo and, of course, seen on plenty of cardboard.

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Hockey fans will have some extra things to look out for after the NHL's Winter Classic on Friday when the Montreal Canadiens take on the Boston Bruins in Gillette Stadium.

Upper Deck hockey cards will be made just for the event and also will be distributed at participating hobby shops in the Boston area as well as in and around Montreal.

As with any premiere event, there also will be interactive displays and other unique cardboard for hockey fans (and collectors) to pick up outside the stadium.

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Like many collectors, Buzz is a fan of grading and knows that there are many reasons that collectors choose to slab cards. Sometimes it's to enhance the appeal and protect them when selling. Other times it's to protect an investment for the long-term or to protect for sentimental reasons. Or, it might be just for fun or curiosity about a potential grade.

For the first grading diary here on The Buzz, it will be a mix of cards graded for a few reasons.

The Card: 1993 Upper Deck #449 Derek Jeter
The Reason Graded: This was pulled straight from an underpriced factory set and looked very clean except for a tiny spot on the back -- Buzz figured it might push into the high grades even with the gloss issue. These cards are also not easy to pull from wax or sets cleanly because the high-gloss cards often stick together, peeling away specks of paper. Another reason? This is an iconic card that's worth grading if you own a clean one.
The Grade: BGS 9

Reality Check: The SP Jeter rookie is the one people chase, not this one. This one's $20 on eBay -- and perhaps undervalued considering how they grade on the pop report. BGS 9s and higher are really much rarer than people think.

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The Blowout Cards Forums are where thousands of collectors converge daily to discuss, well, a little bit of everything. Here are five threads about collecting and more that you should check out right now.

What's Buzzing: Vintage cardboard, 2015 Topps Strata, penmanship & more.

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With the holiday season here, cardboard is probably on the minds of many Buzz readers as they wonder what might await them soon.

Others, like Buzz, might be thinking of Cardboard of Christmas Past -- you know, some of the Santa Claus trading cards we've seen throughout the years. Most of it's trivial and not all that collectable -- but they all stand out in a way compared to our traditional sports cards.

1989 Pro Set Promos #1989
When Dallas-based Pro Set created this card during its first season of making football cards in 1989, it sparked a trend that we saw in not just football cards but other areas in the years that followed. (Boy are there some bad Photoshop jobs there in the 1990s.) For all intents and purposes, though, Buzz would call this one a "Rookie Card." Yes, there were previous non-sports cards -- but this was the one that put cards like this on the minds of the sports-collecting masses after it was mailed out to dealers and selected NFL-related people.

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Even if he's not playing, he's still kind of a big deal.

Edmonton Oilers rookie Connor McDavid is still on the mend, but the arrival of 2015-16 Upper Deck Black Diamond continues the big-time action on hockey cards featuring the No. 1 draft pick.

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What: 2015-16 Upper Deck Ice hockey cards
Arrives: April 2016
Box basics: four cards per pack, eight packs per box, 16 boxes per case (two inner cases)

What's buzz-worthy: Ice returns with one autograph, one memorabilia card and one Exquisite insert per box along with a selection of three Ice Premieres cards or 2005-06 Retro Ice Premieres cards. ... It's the second wave of Exquisite inserts for Upper Deck releases this season.

Keep reading for more and a full gallery of images.

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